Guest review by SUPER BAD ADVICE

There's a widely-held theory that, every so often, it’s healthy for people to get out of their ‘comfort zones’. Challenge yourself. Do something different. Stretch your boundaries.
 
But here’s an alternative take: this idea is a right pile of honking dog eggs. Comfort zones are nice precisely *because* they’re comfortable, and being comfortable is ace. Would you attempt to sleep on a pile of bricks while a clown wearing nothing but a soiled pink leotard does squat thrusts over you and think “ooh, what a lovely change from my comfy bed! I’m really growing as a person!”? 
 
Unless you’re a titanic pervert, clearly this: no.

Anyway, if there are 2 genres of game I really couldn’t care less about, it’s football sims and resource management/world building type sims: they are my own personal ‘squatty the clown’, getting his crotch all up in my comfort zone. I know some people lap them up, but to me the latter have all the appeal and excitement of filling in a tax return. And the former?
 
Well, as far as I’m concerned, the zenith of amusement you could eke from a footie sim was reached in about 2004 – this being the pre-licencing cheapskate days when players in some games came set with stupid fake names such as “Devid Bockham” and “Fronk Lumphard”, but if you wanted you could amend them to correct them all.
 
You know: if you were a colossal dullard.

Whenever a real bad thing happens in America, the chubby finger of blame is often wafted in the direction of video games.

Indeed, President Donald Covefefe-Plenty-Of-Oil-Everybody-Loves-Me Trump did just this recently, in the wake of the shootings in Texas and Ohio which left 31 people dead in the space of 24 hours.

You know, rather than attributing it to something like, oh I dunno, America's absurdly relaxed gun laws and the radicalisation of disenfranchised young men by a culture and an administration which allows white supremacy to flourish unchecked.

Since the series first debuted in 1992, Mortal Kombat - famed for its gory, over-the-top, finishing moves, such as freezing an opponent in a block of ice and shattering them, or using telekinetic abilities to pull an enemy's entrails out through their mouth, or dismembering somebody with a sharp hat - has often been linked to real-world acts of violence. 

The franchise has been at the centre of various studies into the psychological effects of gaming violence, and was named during the infamous 1993 US Congressional hearing, which led to increased industry regulation. Consequently, various incarnations of the series have been banned around the world, and the latest instalment, Mortal Kombat 11, is unavailable in China, Japan, Indonesia, and Ukraine. 

Her are six times Mortal Kombat - a game in which it is possible to swallow a fellow combatant whole, and spit out their bones, or inflate their head like a balloon - was linked to real-life awfulness.

Did you know that the working name for the Amiga CD32 was "Spellbound"? "Toilet-bound" would've been more appropriate!!!!!!

Isn't that funny? Yes. Yes it is.

The Amiga CD32 was a last rattle of the tin for Commodore; a half-buttocked, ill-considered, attempt to get a palsied finger-hold in the burgeoning CD console market.

Though technically it was the first 32-bit CD games console, that's a bit like praising the first moon landing attempt by a four year-old in his homemade, diarrhoea-powered, cardboard space rocket.

The CD32 was hobbled by a hastily-assembled internal load of wretched old mess, a terrible controller that had all the aesthetic appeal of a particularly difficult maths equation, Commodore's astigmatic management - which lead to the machine being discontinued after just eight months and the company going bankrupt - and the continued wilful ignorance of the Amiga's audience, who boasted the collective awareness of the Pompeii resident who opened a flammable trousers shop the morning Vesuvius erupted. 

Oddly, in 1995 - the year following the official end of both the console, and all things Amiga - the CD32 gained a sort of vague half-life as an arcade system, courtesy of Milanese company CD Express, the result of a licensing deal struck prior to Commodore's dismal termination.

Nine arcade games in total were released using the CD32 hardware (which was, even later, used inside a handful of fruit machines - Leprechaun's Luck, Hawaiian Delight and Mister Magic - by an entirely different company).

And here they are; here are some of those games that I mentioned.

Volcano experiments are a staple of science fairs and school projects in the USA. English gentlemen Mr Biffo and Paul Gannon attempt their own volcano project, but mostly just dig a deep, deep, hole for themselves...

The Christmas blockbuster season has begun, kicking off with the release of Gears 5 - no longer a game "Of War" apparently (spoiler: it is).

Over the next couple of months, publishers will be punting out big game after big game, and this is the start of it. And I can't be bothered to play it, so sorry if you were expecting a review. Here, instead, is my justification...

More classic pranks get pimped-up by Biffo and Gannon as they test out exploding pens, disappearing ink, electric shock gum - and even more terrifying scare pranks!

You may not have heard of Phoenix Games, but they were one of the most prolific games publishers of the 90s and 00s. Before the Dutch company went bust in 2009, closing its offices - including a subsidiary in Leicester, UK - it spewed out scores of titles for the PlayStation, PS2, Wii and Nintendo DS. Any one of them could rank on the worst games of all times list.

Describing itself as a "super budget publisher", Phoenix Games' ethos was to invest next to nothing into its releases, developing them very quickly using an established template, and then punting them into newsagents and shitshops, so they weren't competing directly with bigger budget/better releases.

Often they would license the output of animation studios with a similar creative ethos - low-budget cartoons, typically thinly-disguised "homages" to Disney classics. Phoenix would bundle the short films together with a handful of mini games (always jigsaw and slide puzzles, and colouring books). 

​These included versions of Cinderella, and - memorably - Toy Story, entitled The Toys Room. It starred a bizarre stuffed doll known as Pina, and a sentient Game Boy called Charlie Chip, who waggled a questionably-placed joystick whenever he spoke.

​Its terrifying cover  must be seen to be believed:

However, perhaps the most notorious Phoenix Games relationship was its collaboration with German Animation studio Dingo Pictures.

Formed in the early 90s, Dingo released films with titles such as Aladin (a single L getting around any potential copyright issues), Legend of Herkules, Mighty Mulan, and various releases featuring Dalmatians. However, chief among all of these was Snow White and The 7 Clever Boys.

​As with many Dingo Pictures releases, it was licensed by Phoenix Games, and given a cover that doesn't remotely resemble anything in the film itself.

Let's take a look at the seven minute-long film, which boasted a crude mix of CGI backgrounds and hand-drawn animation...

How do modern kids' science kit experiments compare to vintage ones? In this experiment-heavy edition of Digitiser we completely fail to find out! It's science, kids!

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